Not All Political Ad Spend Is Good; Facebook Updates Search

The coming tsunami of political spending has the ad tech world salivating, but it isn’t all positive. Ana Radelat writes for Ad Age that both users and buyers could face a “political crowd out” in 2016. With so many candidates (not to mention outside advocacy groups) and inventory so targeted, the competition for high-value spots on TV and digital will lead to rate hikes and a painful squeeze that will translate into good news for publishers in the form of higher yield. Users will experience that crowd out in the form of too many political ads, which may backfire on candidates or issue campaigns. More.

Surfacing Intent

Facebook has introduced a consequential change to its search product. The Verge’s Nick Statt writes that Facebook will now index all 2 trillion user posts for real-time and curated search. For instance, a user search for “MLB” could lead to a page that features news specific to your baseball team and interests, with authoritative sources on top and a scroll down to friends’ comments. The change will help Facebook stay on top of Twitter’s real-time curation, and could be a boon to marketers. Read on.

Legacy Mags Turn To Ecommerce

Time Inc. will roll out something called People Shop, an online store that will sell lifestyle products and accessories. The goal is to stimulate new revenue following the magazine’s spinoff from Time Warner last year, according to Lucia Moses at Digiday. Time editorial director Jess Cagle says publishers need to cultivate a variety of incremental revenue streams on digital, while “the best we can do with print is to stabilize it.” More.

Fake Athletes, Real Dollars

In a few short years, “e-sports” has gone from a niche community of unknown nerds playing video games to a multibillion-dollar marketing vehicle. Video game competitions are steadily gaining steam, with big-dollar interest for streaming and broadcast entertainment. Following Amazon’s purchase of Twitch, Google launched its own “YouTube Gaming” group. And it isn’t just digital natives: TBS recently bought the broadcast rights for a professional video game league and Activision, a leading video game company, just launched an e-sports division dedicated to streaming opportunities.